Today we stand at a turning point in the road. Two billsare battling in the U.S. Senate offering radically different visions on how our nation should spend taxpayer money and whether to uphold the Constitution or taking it a step closer to death in the digital age.

It would not only stop the warrantless harvest of so called "telephone metadata" -- which includes location tracking records -- but it save U.S. taxpayers potentially tens of billions of dollars, money which could be put back into the economy and be spent on traditional methods that actually improve security.

Backed by unlikely allies like Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Leahy (left) is fighting to push a bill that does the opposite of Sen. Feinstein's (right) bill. [Image Source: AP]

The latter allowance -- for the government to seize your records without warrant from businesses to conduct "clandestine intelligence" is such an ambiguous and abusable allowance that it has no place being in the U.S. Code.

Chances are you have a political opinion. Would you like your opinion suppressed?

If past spying on non-terrorist American citizens under the PATRIOT Act is any sign, Congress is too weak to stop such abuses, or, worse yet, is encouraging them. Such information in the future could be abused to harass or detain citizens -- if it hasn't been already. There's a reason why the Founding Fathers protected citizens right against "search and seizures" without a warrant.

The police state can try, but it can't kill the Constitution because it's more than a document, it's an idea. [Image Source: Alan Moore/David Lloyd]

A warrant doesn't preclude abuse. But if judges issue abusive warrant, it will likely become publicly known. By contrast warrantless domestic spying leaves vary little paper trail and hence is the ideal tool to crack down on political enemies. Why do you think nations like China, Russia, and Iran love it so much? After years of condemning them, the U.S. is becoming the latest government to install tools that can be used to silence voices for political change.

III. The Spy State is Spending You and Your Children Into Debt

Spying on the masses of law abiding citizens is not only condoned behind closed doors by companies like BAH and Oracle, it's explicitly lobbied for. As a result your money is being funneled to massive for-profit corporations, while providing little antiterrorism benefit.

The NSA at best claimed that call records were used in one or two anti-terrorism cases. And it is unclear whether either case involved an actual U.S. citizen or evidence that traditional, Constitutional law enforcement tools would have been insufficient to stop the plot.

Bribery pays big dividends in U.S. politics. Given that federal politicians have little legal responsibility to recuse themselves from decisions involving campaign donors and given that the payoff is $220 USD per $1 USD spent lobbying it's a dream investment.
[Image Source: Haberrus]

This is yet another piece of evidence showcasing the merits of a 2011 peer-reviewed economics study by researchers Raquel Alexander and Susan Scholz of the University of KansasSchool of Business which estimates that per $1 USD spent on lobbying a company gets back $220 USD, on average in contracts, tax breaks, grants, etc. Is it surprising that some individuals would sacrifice the public's privacy in exchange for a 220-fold return on investment?

Today federal spying is low cost and focuses more heavily on U.S. citizens. This all equates to more pork for paid of polticians to push. [Image Source: The People's Cube]

Even Joseph McCarthy didn't have tens of billions to splurge on spying on millions of Americans. After showering special interests with blatant payoffs, the best weak excuse that the NSA can give is "we think it might have stopped a person or two who might have committed a terrorist attack, but we can't reveal many details to back up our claims!"

Trying to find those terrorists... [Image Source: Mashable]

An who knows how long those one or two hypothetical terrorists will last. After all, the NSA originally claimed over the summer that the domestic spying had been used to foil 54 terrorist plots, only to back off that claim when more evidence emerged strongly indicating that was a ridiculous falsehood.

This laughable back-tracking brings to mind Get Smart's "Would you believe....?"

Imagine if the federal government spent a billion to monitor every mugger and murderer. Talk about BIG government!

IV. The Spy State Opens the Doors to Insider Trading, Corporate Espionage

With this bold era of spying on both U.S. and international networks, it's important to remember that small business, mid-size businesses, and ... yes... even corporations all have their data swept up in the same net. In other words, the NSA spying program represents the world's best ever corporate espionage opportunity.

After receiving a record amount of special interest money, will the Obama administration return the favor by offering the spy state's domestic espionage capabilities? [Image Source: AP]

Just imagine your JP Morgan Chase, and you're invested in companies A, B, and C, which compete in various markets against companies D, E, and G respectively. Wouldn't it be great to know what D, E, and G were planning, who they were talking to, and what they were designing?

Well, with the NSA spying high ranking shareholders could go to their Obama administration contacts and request this information be covertly delivered. These contacts would have little choice but comply (otherwise they might wind up being branded a "traitor" like Mr. Snowden and face prosecution or death).

Alternatively, a domestic investment firm like JP Morgan or BlackRock, Inc. (BLK) -- or even a foreign investment firm like The China Vanguard Group, Ltd. (HKG:8156) -- could use their relationship with contractors like BAH or Oracle to gain access to illicit insider information to pass along to their investments. I chose Vanguard and BlackRock as they both are among the largest shareholders in Oracle according to public documents (Vanguard is the largest), who is widely thought to have provided ongoing support for PRISM and other NSA spying programs.

Imagine if large investment banks had access to insider secrets and were shielded prosecution by the politicians they donated to. [Image Source: David Sachs/SEIU]

Let's assume this abuse has not happened yet, but let's be very cautious and try to think what would happen if it did. Would anyone find out?

Let's see, at most a dozen or so people -- many of whom are financially motivated to cover up this illegal behavior are involved in the theft of corporate secrets (courtesy of the NSA). NSA data requests are justified by vague forms, which are not made public. Thus it is unlikely Congress would know, let alone citizens. But what about the FBI and NSA?? Oh right, like they're going to catch illegal behavior at the companies they pay to do their "police work" (or lack thereof). Where are they going to gather evidence? From nicely asking Oracle?

If you believe Congressional incumbents like Sen. Feinstein have been behaving in a criminal, unconstitutional, treasonous manner, working to funnel your money to special interests, install tools to allow the theft of corporate secrets, and potentially suppress true voices of change, recognize that their efforts didn't start yesterday. Sen. Feinstein and others have been supporting the PATRIOT Act and spying by the NSA and other agencies for over a decade now. In many cases their family members have profited handsomely off their positions of power, which they obtained by acting as shills without a conscious to special interests.

It's true special interests gave these politicians the money to buy advertising and (possibly) to suppress media visibility of potential political rivals. But at the end of the day everyone with internet access could have examined their voting record and could have sent a clear message by voting them out of Congress.

Either you're to blame, or your fellow citizens are to blame.

The two headed monster continues to feed as long as the voters keep installing it in office.
[Image Source: Anthony Freda]

Either way the solution is clear. Explain to your politically apathetic friends why the government is taking is wrong. Write letters to politicians. Sign petitions. And most importantly vote -- and do everything in power to make sure your friends vote.

Senator Feinstein and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) voted for the original PATRIOT Act in 2001. To be fair, 99 out of 100 Senators made the same decision.

But they had the chance to reconsider in 2006 -- and they blew it. That time around the support wasn't nearly as unanimous with Sen. Udall, Wyden, and 8 others uniting in an opposition "Nea".

They fooled use once. They fooled us twice. Surprise, surprise here they are voting for it again.

Most citizens seem opposed to the government spying on us, and if they're not they're generally only unopposed under the false premise certain members of Congress have somehow convinced Americans of -- that by robbing Americans of our civil liberties and treating law abiding citizens as criminals that we're somehow "safer".

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kent.) claims to be conservative but is awash in big government special interest kickbacks and support for Orwellian spying. [Image Source: AP]

That's not to say there aren't a few politicians who fight the status quo -- Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oreg.), Sen. Mark Udall (D-Oreg.), and Sen. Rand Paul (D-Kentucky), and a handful of reps, e.g. Rep. Dr. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) and former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) -- come to mind. You might not agree with all of these elected officials' opinions, but they make it relatively clear in their votes that they actually care about defending America and engaging legitimate political debate.

But by and large they are in the minority, despite the fact that their views appear to represent those of most Americans.

The Tea Party and libertarian-leaning republicans have been complaining about President Obama's spying ever since he took office almost. Yet many have voted for Senator McConnell, who pushed this spying program. Liberal democrats complained non-stop about President Bush and the PATRIOT Act -- yet most in California have made the dumbfounding decision to vote Sen. Feinstein into office not once, but twice -- first in 2006, then in 2012 by landside margins that had some labeling her as "America's most popular politician".

For those who hate the PATRIOT Act, but voted for Sen. Feinstein in 2006 and 2012, let me illustrate to you how ridiculously easy it would have been to figure out you're making a mistake last year.

1. Go to Google.

2. Click on the first result! (appropriately from the URL "Educate-Yourself.org")

3. Read

4. Make yourself a delicious sandwich, and crack open a cold beer -- you deserve it, that was a lot of work.

[Image Source: Moerlein Lager House]

Are the masses that stupid? Are we too lazy to care as we're herded like sheep towards the demise of our freedoms?

Or are many of us suffering from some sort of collective Stockholm syndrome where we fall in love with our abusive captors, cowering, yet crawling back to their feet after each beating?

VI. You Can Fool Some of the People Some of the Time, But You Can't Fool All the People All the Time

Either way, the answer is to not be part of the problem. Educate yourself, educate others, and vote for true change. So what can you do?

First let's work to protect the whistleblower who allowed us to defend the Constitution.

As former CIA analyst and published author Barry Eisler points out, throughout most of our nation's history (and even the CIA and NSA's history, which are respectively brief and briefer by comparison), citizens serving the U.S. military and U.S. intelligence agency's key oath was to protect the Constitution -- not to swear to keep secret immoral actions that undermine the Constitution.

If Mr. Snowden is a criminal in today's bloated, special interests-controlled federal government, he's a hero by the standards of our fathers and grandfathers. You can recognize this by asking for President Obama for a pardon on We The People -- the official government petition site:
"Pardon Edward Snowden"

The cost of inaction is not only harm to our great nation, harm to U.S. freedom. If the people stand idle, this campaign of universal surveillance will continue to harm our allies. Don't let special interest-funded politicians turn the U.S. into a destructive, anti-freedom force.

The preservation of peace and the guaranteeing of man's basic freedoms and rights require courage and eternal vigilance: courage to speak and act - and if necessary, to suffer and die - for truth and justice; eternal vigilance, that the least transgression of international morality shall not go undetected and unremedied.

We must stay ever vigilant and carefully consider the ideas of the Constitution and whether the people we're voting for are respecting them in the digital era.

"I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For [Paramount] to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks!" -- Movie Director Michael Bay